


by any other name

by dramatic_audio



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Other, Post-Finale, Season 2 spoilers, also rita, but someone in the tpp server asked what alias would piss juno off the most, not that this pisses juno off so much as triggers his ptsd, okay i know everybody's writing these, we love healing and growing as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 03:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17841764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramatic_audio/pseuds/dramatic_audio
Summary: Buddy, for the first time, spoke up, cutting smoothly through Rita’s excited outburst. “Darling, you must be mistaken,” she purred in a voice that indicated that she knew very well that Nureyev was composed of alias upon alias upon alias. “This man is our very own Benzaiten Law.”





	by any other name

His heart was rattling against his ribcage like a coin in a tin can. He reached up to rub the remaining irritants out of his eyes and let his hand fall to his neck, feeling his pulse beat a wild tattoo against his throat and fingertips, glancing up awkwardly when Buddy cleared her throat. Nureyev’s gaze slid from where it had been fixed confidently on Juno over to her, and she raised her eyebrows pointedly. Grinning, he slid off the hood and opened the front seat door.

“Jet,” he said smoothly, eyes settling on Brown Jacket, and made a mock flourish towards the seat. Juno let his hand drop from where it had stilled against his pulse, having felt it kick up at the reminder of Jet’s name. Now, glancing between the car and the man, crystalline windows glittering in the moonlight, he made a snap connection.

“Jet Siquliak,” he said suddenly, breaking his silence. His voice rasped and caught on the grit lingering in his throat and he fought back another coughing fit. Once it had subsided, he continued. “You’re the initial owner of the Ruby Seven. You used it to—” without really meaning to, Juno glanced back at Nureyev, who’d gone still. “—steal the Iris of Jupiter?”

“That is correct,” Jet said.

Nureyev was moving again in Juno’s periphery, but he kept his eyes fixed on Jet, who, with a nod, strode over to the car and began checking it meticulously.

“What happened to the paint job?” he asked, oblivious to the moment frozen in the air between them.

A muscle tensed in Nureyev’s jaw, but he answered calmly: “an getaway gone awry.” Juno’s gut clenched, but Jet nodded, looking dissatisfied—insofar as he could have any expression.

Juno made to move to Rita’s side, but the tension in her body gave him pause. She seemed to be inflating, staring lasers at Nureyev. Juno realized a second too late why.

“Rita—don’t—”

“AGENT GLASS!” She burst out, her shrill voice grinding all other movement and sound to a halt. Nureyev turned on his heel, mouth open in a patronizing smile, ready to smoothly correct her. She steamrolled through him. “What are you doin’ here! Aren’t you with Dark Matters, and that lady that Juno hates, or likes, it’s _kiiinda_ hard to tell, you know?, and—”

Buddy, for the first time, spoke up, cutting smoothly through Rita’s excited outburst. “Darling, you must be mistaken,” she purred in a voice that indicated that she knew very well that Nureyev was composed of alias upon alias upon alias. “This man is our very own Benzaiten Law.”

Everything froze around Juno. His vision tunneled around Nureyev, who was smiling still, but had his eyes fixed on Juno. Chills ran under his skin and down his spine. A sick dread filled his stomach and pumped tension through his muscles. He tried to speak, but all that he could manage was a strangled sound that grated on his raw throat. His heart pounded in a staccato beat in his ears.

Nureyev’s look fell from smug to confused to worried in the seconds it took for his mind to reel backward, back to Hanataba’s cold steel on his eyes and spine and to the sound of Benzaiten’s faraway laughter as he surfaced into a drugged haze and to the sound of a clock: tick. tick. tick. tick. _the time is—_

“You did not tell me that our partner had chosen a new alias.” Jet’s stoic voice brought Juno back into clear, sharp focus, his panicked spiral still threatening to drag him back under. 

Nureyev was staring at him openly now, quiet concern in his previously stony face. It felt like salt on an open wound. Juno flinched and forced himself to turn away to watch Jet. He was looking to Buddy, a slight frown etched on his symmetrical features. Unexpectedly, his next words were directed at Juno: “Are you alright?”

“How do you know?” his voice was jagged, suspended miles away. He felt the walls he’d spent months with Rita pulling down close back in on him, tightening his face into defensive anger.

Jet was unmoved. “I heard you mutter the name while you were undergoing the hallucinations incurred in the removal of your eye.”

Nureyev made a horrified noise in the back of his throat. “Juno—” he started, then cut himself off. Juno's fingers twitched by his side, the cloth eyepatch seeming to grow heavier and tighter against his face. He closed his other eye. Sarah Steel’s voice taunted at the corners of his consciousness, a tantalizing free-fall pulling him away from the desert and the stars and Peter Nureyev, finally, after all these—

“I will be,” he said firmly, and tilted his chin up to look directly at Nureyev. “Alright, I mean. If I can call you something other than that.”

He could tell his sudden, uncomfortable vulnerability was jarring. Nureyev glanced at Rita, and back to him, and nodded.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Rose, maybe.”

He couldn’t have missed the flinch that flew through Nureyev's features before they settled into an inscrutable lake of calm. “Rose it is,” he agreed, and flicked his fingers. A slight, practiced smile surfaced on his lips. “Shall we?”

Buddy, who had been following the tableau in curious silence, smiled and stepped down off the ramp. She offered her hand to Vespa, who followed with a suspicious glance shot at both of the offending parties. 

“Juno?” she asked, pausing before sliding into the backseat.

He looked at Rita. She nodded, her eyes lighting up as she considered the sleek jade car humming in the glow of the rising moon. “Ready, Mista Steel?”

He grinned. The sick feeling was draining slowly out of his muscles, and he felt the sudden, inexplicable urge to laugh.

“Yeah, Rita,” he said. “I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> the ruby seven is a sexy jade color, you can fight me at my blog which is conveniently at thejade7.tumblr.com


End file.
